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  PRAISE FOR DIANA PALMER

  “Nobody tops Diana Palmer when it comes to delivering pure, undiluted romance. I love her stories.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

  “Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “Diana Palmer is a unique talent in the romance industry. Her writing combines wit, humor, and sensuality; and, as the song says, nobody does it better!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard

  “No one beats this author for sensual anticipation.”

  —Rave Reviews

  “A love story that is pure and enjoyable.”

  —Romantic Times on Lord of the Desert

  “The dialogue is charming, the characters likeable and the sex sizzling…”

  —Publishers Weekly on Once in Paris

  Diana Palmer has published over seventy category romances, as well as historical romances and longer contemporary works. With over forty million copies of her books in print, New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer is one of North America’s most beloved authors. Her accolades include seven national Waldenbooks bestseller awards, four national B. Dalton bestseller awards, two Bookrak national sales awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award for series storytelling from Romantic Times magazine, several Affaire de Coeur awards and two regional RWA awards. Diana resides in the north mountains of her home state of Georgia with her husband, James, and their son, Blayne Edward.

  DIANA PALMER

  Bound by a Promise

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  One

  He was standing alone by the shore, a big, solitary figure against the thin mist that blanketed the silvery water in the early morning. Kathryn had seen him there before a number of times since she and Maude had moved into the lake house for the summer. But keeping up with the famous author’s blazing deadlines had only allowed for a few brief outings on the lake for Kate, one of which the man standing there had shattered with his arrogance.

  Kathryn Summers was curious about Garet Cambridge, even while she resented everything he stood for. His aircraft corporation was one of the biggest in the country, and his genius for designing new planes had earned him an international reputation. But all it meant to Kathryn was that he could buy people.

  She knew too much about prices already, having just been thrown over by the man she loved when he found out that her social pedigree didn’t meet his family’s exacting standards. The daughter of a small Texas cattle rancher whose parents were divorced was hardly a likely candidate for the social register. In fact, it was only this job, working for the notorious Maude Niccole, that made it possible for her to keep her father’s ranch from being put on the auction block. His health was steadily failing, and so were the ranch’s profits.

  She glared at Cambridge unconsciously from her perch on a log beside the spreading waters of Lake Lanier. She’d come here for the peace and quiet, and she wished he’d decided to spend his summer in Europe or Miami instead of here. Perhaps he thought the reporters who trailed him might not think of looking for him on a North Georgia lake. And apparently they hadn’t, because he was alone; a ghostly figure in brown slacks and a cream open-necked sports shirt, his dark hair lifting in the breeze.

  As if he felt the intensity of emotion in the glare of her pale brown eyes, he turned suddenly and saw her sitting there, with her silver blonde hair flowing down like silk around her thin shoulders.

  He moved forward with his hands in his pockets until he was standing over her, towering over her, and his leaf green eyes glittered down at her out of a face as dark as a Native American’s.

  “You’re trespassing,” he said gruffly, not even bothering with polite conversation.

  She cocked her head up at him. “Excuse me, I wasn’t aware that you owned the shoreline as well as the lake,” she said bitterly, referring to an earlier incident between them, when he’d practically ordered her off the lake.

  One dark eyebrow went up at the sarcasm. “I own fifty acres of shoreline,” he said quietly. “What you’re sitting on is part of it. I came here for privacy, not to be hounded by curiosity seekers.”

  She’d have given anything at that moment to have had wealth enough, power enough, to tell him where to go. But she had nothing, and he could force her to go easily enough. She got up from the stump without another word, brushing off her blue denim jeans. With a sigh of resignation, she started back toward Maude’s luxurious beach house.

  “Who are you?” he growled after her.

  “Amelia Earhart,” she replied carelessly. “ Do keep your eyes peeled for my plane, I seem to have misplaced it,” she added, and kept right on walking.

  Behind her, she imagined she heard the deep sound of a man’s laughter.

  Maude was waiting for her in the sprawling living room, her bags packed, her thin face nervous.

  “Thank goodness, you’re back!” the novelist sighed. “I thought you’d never come home! Kate, I’ve just gotten a telegram. My father’s in the hospital, and I’ve got to fly to Paris immediately.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kate said with genuine concern.

  “So am I,” Maude said sadly. “I’m very fond of the old scalawag, even if he did disown me when I announced that I’d decided to become a romance writer. Honey, will you be okay here until I get back? I don’t have any idea how long it’s going to take.”

  Kate nodded and smiled, hating that drawn, hurt look on her employer’s face, the sadness in Maude’s pale blue eyes framed by salt and pepper curly hair. “I’ll finish typing the manuscript while you’re gone.”

  Maude nodded, looking around to see if she’d forgotten anything. “Don’t overlook that page of changes I wrote last night—I think it’s in the top desk drawer. And, for goodness sake, keep your door locked at night!”

  “I will. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I can’t help it,” Maude said with a quick smile. “You’re so reckless lately, Kate. Is it the job? Do you want out?”

  “No, it’s not that,” came the quick reply. “I…oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s the weather. It’s so hot.”

  “The weather, or memories?” the older woman probed. “Jesse Drewe was a triple-A heel, my love, you deserve better.”

  Kate shifted from one foot to the other restlessly. “I’d have liked to be turned down for myself,” she said softly, “not for my lack of money and social standing. It hurt.”

  “I know, but we don’t always love to order,” Maude said, “and more’s the pity. You’ll get over it. I know you don’t think so now, but you will.”

  “Of course,” Kate said, even though she didn’t believe it. “Have a safe trip, and let me know you got there all right.”

  “I’ll send you a cable, I promise,” Maude replied. “Where were you, anyway?” she asked idly as she picked up one suitcase, leaving the other for Kate to bring as she went out the door and headed for the rented car.

  “On the beach,” she replied. “At least I was until Mr. Cambridge Aircraft Corporation ordered me off his lake.”

  “Garet, again?” Maude sighed. “Oh, Kate, why can’t you be kind to that man? You’ve already had one run-in with him over the way you were speeding in the boat….”

  “He doesn’t own the lake,” Kate said stubbornly, remembering too well the cold voice telling her if she didn’t stop “driving over the lake like a mania
c” he’d have the lake patrol after her. She’d told him where to go, recognizing him immediately from photos she’d seen in news magazines, and zoomed off in Maude’s little light cruiser. Since that day, she’d seen him often walking alone on the beach, but he’d never spoken to her again, and she’d never allowed him close enough to make it possible.

  “He owns enough of the lake,” Maude replied. She took Kate by the shoulders, smiling at her sullen look. “Don’t match wits with him. He can hurt you. Don’t try to make him pay for Jesse’s behavior. Jesse was only a boy. Garet…” she paused, searching for the words, “Garet’s a law unto himself. He makes up his own rules as he goes along. Be careful you don’t break any of them. He makes an utterly ruthless enemy.”

  “How do you know?” Kate asked.

  “I was a reporter before I got smart and started writing books,” Maude explained. “I did a story about Garet and misquoted one of his top advisers. He had me fired, and every time I tried to apply for another position, I seemed to be wrong for the job. Finally, in desperation, I sent Garet a lengthy, tearful apology, and the next thing I knew, editors were calling me in for interviews.” She smiled. “It was a rough way to learn the necessity for accuracy. I never forgot the lesson.”

  Kate felt chills run up and down her spine despite the heat. “He sounds like a bulldozer.”

  “He is,” Maude agreed. “It takes a ruthless man to build an empire, and to hold it.”

  “I pity his wife.”

  “He doesn’t have one.”

  “I’m not surprised!”

  “He has women instead.” Maude grinned. “His own personal harem, and they drip jewels and mink.”

  “Money can buy everything, it seems,” Kate grumbled, feeling the hurt all over again.

  “Not everything, baby. Not love.” Maude got into the rented car and closed the door. “ don’t know when I’ll get to come home. When you finish the manuscript, mail it to Benny and start working on the next one I’ve drafted on tape. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Kate squeezed the thin hand through the open window. “Thank you,” she added.

  “For what?”

  “For hiring me. For caring about me. For putting up with me,” Kate said, her eyes like burnished gold in her oval face.

  Maude smiled. “Who puts up with whom?” she corrected. “Little one, I’m quite fond of you. If I’d had the good sense to marry in my youth, I’d have a daughter your age. Lonely people seem to find each other.”

  “I’m not lonely,” Kate told her, with a smile. “Not now.”

  “Yes, you are,” the older woman replied kindly, searching the pale brown eyes. “Lonely and hurting. But we have to weather the storms before we can enjoy the sunshine. Don’t dwell on the past, and the sun will come out a lot faster.”

  “Take care,” Kate said softly.

  Maude only laughed. “I’m indestructible, didn’t you know?” she teased.

  “I hope it goes well.”

  “He’s seventy-eight,” Maude reminded her. “He’s lived a long life, and a full one. I won’t pretend that I can give him up without tears. But I’ll cross that bridge when I have to. Meanwhile, I’ve got to get there. Remember what I said, and don’t speed in the boat,” she added, emphasizing each word.

  “Killjoy,” Kate grinned. “Okay, I’ll hunt bears.”

  Maude lifted her eyes heavenward. “They say that God looks after fools and children. I do hope it’s true. Bye, honey.”

  She was off in a cloud of dust, and Kate watched until the car was a speck in the distance.

  The big log beach house was empty without Maude’s sparkling personality. Kate mooned around drinking coffee and staring out at the tree-edged lake as it shimmered in the sunlight like silver, rippling cloth.

  Maude was right, she did have to let go of the past. But how could she, when every time she closed her eyes she saw Jesse’s long, smiling face, the blue eyes that laughed and loved her.

  She’d met Jesse in Austin, where she and her father had gone to a cattle sale, and they were fast friends before the day was over. Jesse had a sophistication she’d never been exposed to in the rural area where she lived, a charm that knocked her legs out from under her. By the time he took her back to her hotel, her heart was in bars. And judging by the way he kissed her goodnight, it seemed as if the feeling might be mutual.

  The sale had lasted three days, and Kate the rancher’s daughter and Jesse the meatpacker’s son were inseparable. In between meals, they acted like tourists, seeing every interesting spot in the city and outside it, learning how much they had in common, clinging to each other with a desperation that was like an omen of things to come.

  On the third day, he asked her to marry him, and she said yes. She was that sure, even after such a short space of time. What she hadn’t counted on was the new social set it would throw her into.

  Jesse wanted to take her home with him, to introduce her to his family. Kate was reluctant, but she saw the inevitability of it. And her father let her go readily enough, even though the trip to Chicago would wipe out her savings. He had wished her happiness with twinkling brown eyes.

  They’d no sooner arrived at Jesse’s family’s estate outside Chicago when Kate began to open her eyes to reality. The house was old, and elegant, and dripping in crystal chandeliers, and Victorian wing chairs which weren’t reproductions. As if the trappings weren’t enough to bring the situation home to her, Jesse’s mother came down the stairs in an original Oleg Cassini gown, perfectly coiffed, and reeking of expensive perfume. To say she wasn’t impressed with Kate was an understatement. She took the young girl’s hand as if she were picking up a dead mouse, dropping it as quickly as possible and calling her husband downstairs with a voice that positively quavered with horror.

  Kate was uncomfortable to the point of tears, even with Jesse’s half-hearted reassurances. But at the dinner table when his father pinned her down about the actual size of her father’s cattle ranch and she told them one hundred acres, Jesse looked as if he might faint. That was when she understood the mistaken impression he’d had of the ranch. He’d thought she was one of “his kind” of people, and had suddenly found to his astonishment that she was almost penniless.

  The next day, Jesse’s mother called Kate into the study, and, with a frozen smile, explained that Jesse had been called away on urgent business. She hoped Kate hadn’t taken Jesse seriously, the boy was so young, and a little flighty, and so easily taken in by a pretty face. Kate would get over it, and, anyway, hadn’t she enjoyed seeing how the other half lived and having her breakfast served in bed?

  Wounded, hurting, dying inside, Kate managed to say the right thing, pack her bag, and with her savings, afford a bus ticket home to Texas. The money she’d had to spend getting home would have gone to help pay off the heavy mortgage on her father’s ranch. Only Maude’s advertisement in the Austin paper had saved them from foreclosure. That was several months ago, but the wounds were still open and every thought of the Drewe family, or great wealth, rubbed more salt in them.

  Rich people could get away with murder. They owned the world and all the little people in it, and they could do as they liked with their victims. Kate only wished she had that kind of power; enough to make the Drewes squirm as they’d made her squirm, enough to teach them an unforgettable lesson in humiliation.

  It ached, the memory ached inside her, and she couldn’t stand the confines of the cabin another instant. Despite Maude’s warning, she went straight to the small cabin cruiser and cranked it. Gently, she eased it away from the pier and out of the cove, speeding up as she hit the wide open waters of the lake. There were a few other boats out, but not many this early in the morning. Kate had most of the wide blue expanse to herself, and she opened up the throttle, feeling the boat smash through the waves, feeling the spray in her face, vibrantly biting, taking away the pain, easing the hurt. She drew in a deep breath of the cool, sweet air with its faint fragrance of honeysuckle. A smile touched her flush
ed face, the wildness of speed made her eyes sparkle darkly behind her closed eyelids. What bliss, to let the spray and the wind cut away the memories!

  She opened her eyes again and felt her heart stop. She grabbed feverishly for the throttle as she saw the dark spot in her path, growing with incredible speed in size, into a recognizable shape.

  “Mr. Cambridge, look out!” she screamed, her eyes widening with horror as they gaped at the dark wet head and wide bronzed shoulders looming just ahead.

  He half turned in the water, his eyes spotting her at the wheel. Just before the bow of the cabin cruiser struck, she saw him dive under the surface.

  She fought to get the boat under control, her panic sending it around in circles before she finally got it stopped and let it drift aimlessly while she hung over the side with her heart machine-gunning in her chest, searching the choppy waters in quiet desperation. Had she killed him?!

  Two

  It was the longest ten seconds of her life until Garet Cambridge’s dark head appeared above the surface of the water, with blood pouring from a deep gash at the back of his head. He was near the pier that led to his massive cabin and, as she watched, stricken, he felt for the floating pontoons that held the pier up and heaved himself unsteadily onto the weathered gray boards, breathing heavily.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God he was all right! She started the boat and circled it around going slowly now, not rushing, trembling with guilt and fear and relief. She glanced back to see Cambridge sitting up on the pier, sucking in deep breaths.

  Almost a tragedy, but not quite. Almost a tragedy, because of her recklessness, because she wanted to use speed to relieve her pain and, in doing so, had almost cost a man his life. The fact that she didn’t like Cambridge was no reason to run him down; but she hadn’t done it on purpose, she hadn’t! What would he do, she wondered. Would he press charges? Would he have her arrested? Did she only imagine that she saw recognition in those dark green eyes just before she plowed over him?